Innocence Lost
by GKingOfFez
Summary: For a single shining day, she was his only friend. For a single conversation, she was a stranger who gave him hope. For a single second, Harry would have given anything to know her. But that was just another thing that Voldemort had stolen from him.
1. Billy is a Boys Name

A small boy with broken glasses and messy hair poked his head around the corner of the classroom door to see a flurry of activity and let out a sigh of relief.

He slipped quietly through the door, skirting the edges of the room virtually unnoticed by the other children, who were busy talking excitedly to each other about their various weekends, and the teacher, who was also busy talking to a girl with plaits in her hair.

He was nearly to his seat, when a ringing sound filled the room, and the noise died down. He froze, caught, hanging his head in defeat as the teacher told everyone to take their seats and sent him a very stern look.

"Good morning, children!" The teacher sang and a chorus of "Good morning, miss!" followed.

"Good morning, Harry," she said pointedly, raising her left eyebrow, something she only did when a child was misbehaving and Harry instantly knew what was coming next.

"Would you like to share with the class why you are late, again?"

He blushed, shaking his head. He'd rather willingly eat one of Aunt Petunia's disgusting sandwiches that she usually packed for his lunch than try to explain that the reason he was late was because Dudley had pushed him into one of the large (luckily empty, but still foul –smelling) garbage bins outside school, and he hadn't been able to lift the heavy lid to get himself out.

"No miss," he muttered looking at the floor where he could still see small particles of glitter from when Dudley had 'accidentally' spilt an entire tube onto the floor last week in art time and blamed on Harry.

"Then would you please sit down, dear?" The teacher said in a sickly sweet voice that made Harry want to throw his school bag at her.

"Yes miss," he muttered, still looking at the glitter as he hurried towards his chair, sitting down and pulling out his books and pencils in record time, pretending not to hear when Dudley muttered, "Potter stinks, doesn't he?"

He was used to Dudley's remarks, but it didn't stop him gripping his pencil much harder than was necessary.

"Now today, children, we have a new student in our class," the teacher was saying, and Harry looked up to see her holding the shoulders of the girl she had been talking to earlier. "Her name is Billy-Lee, and her family have just moved here from-"

"Why does she have a boys name if she's a girl?" Dudley said in something Harry supposed was a whisper, but as everything about Dudley was big, it was loud enough so that everyone in the class heard.

The new girl blushed, hanging her head in much the same way Harry had done earlier.

The teacher raised her eyebrow, higher this time. It was well known that the higher her eyebrow went, the angrier she was. Apparently there was a bet among the older kids to see who could get it the highest.

"That was very rude, Dudley," she said very sternly, as though talking to a toddler.

Harry smirked. It was always better when it was Dudley being told off rather than him.

"But I just wanted to know why she had a boy's name, miss," Dudley said very loudly and glaring at Harry.

"Because, some names can be used as both boy and girl names," the teacher said, the eyebrows hitching up a notch on her forehead, which meant that she was nearing boiling point. "_As_ I was saying, Billy's family has only just moved here from London, so I want each of you to make her feel welcome."

Many people nodded, smiling and waving at Billy. Harry gave her a small smile, but was more distracted by Dudley, who had just leaned back in his chair and was bending the plastic with his bulk so that it creaked under him. Harry wished it would snap and Dudley would go crashing to the floor.

"Dudley Dursley, how many time have I told you to sit straight in your chair!" The teacher snapped, before turning back to the new girl.

"Now, Billy, dear, there is a seat over there next to Harry…" Harry looked around at the sound of his name to see the teacher pointing at the seat to his right, which was always empty because no one wanted to sit next to him, "…and would you please get out your books so that we can start the lesson."

The new girl did what she was told, wandering over and pulling out her pencil case and a notebook covered with stickers from her bag and sat perfectly straight in her chair. The teacher waited until she was ready, before calling the roll, then telling the class to open their books and copy what she was writing on the blackboard.

He had just picked up his pencil when something happened that had never happened to Harry before. Billy the new girl turned and absolutely beamed at him, her eyes twinkling. "Hello!" She whispered in a very different whisper to Dudley's and held out her hand. "I'm Billy, Billy-Lee Irlam."

He stared at her, not quite believing his ears. No one had _ever_ talked to him like that before.

"Why are you looking so worried, I'm only saying hello!"

Harry suddenly decided that he liked Billy-Lee Irlam very much.

He opened his mouth to reply, but was cut short when the teacher called for quiet and Harry, not wanting to get into any more trouble, quickly opened his own, plain, notebook and started straight away on his work. Billy-Lee grinned at him, and started her own at a much slower pace.

He waited until the teacher was busy telling off Dudley and his friends for not starting yet, before he whispered out of the corner of his mouth, "Hi. I'm Harry, Harry Potter," and held his hand across the gap between the two desks to shake hers.

Then something very odd happened. Billy's mouth dropped open slightly, and her eyes grew wide in surprise and amazement, although Harry didn't have the faintest idea why. But the strangest thing was her eyes, which slid to his forehead as though expecting to see something there. This was very odd indeed, as the only thing on his forehead was an old scar which he had gotten when his parents had died in a car crash.

Then suddenly Billy shook her head, as if getting rid of a very annoying fly, and her smile came back, wider than before.

"It's really good to meet you, Harry!"

When she smiled, Harry could see every one of her strangely straight teeth. It was a nice smile.

In fact, everything about her was nice; she had extremely dark brown hair, almost black like his own, which was pulled back into two plaits on either side of her head and reached her shoulders, stray bits of too-short hair poked out here and there. Her eyes were nice as well, a kind of blue that reminded him of the sea, and her nose looked like a small, slightly squashed tomato. He liked tomatoes.

She looked at him at the same time, though Harry doubted she found anything nice about his messy hair, broken glasses and green eyes. Even his nose wasn't that nice.

"I like your hair," he whispered earnestly.

"Harry, Billy, are you working?" The teacher suddenly called, and Harry jumped, Billy doing the same, and they quickly turned back to their work.

"Yes, miss," they said in unison. Billy grinned at him.


	2. Carrots and Crisps

_Thanks to Taco for Beta'ing~_

...

Break came, and for some reason Billy followed him outside and asked if she could sit with him. Harry, surprised beyond belief, had asked her if she was sure, and then insisted on sitting on a bench near one of the supervision teachers just in case Dudley decided to play his favourite game of beating him up.

She hadn't questioned it, just looked at him curiously before sitting down and pulling out her lunch box, which was also covered in multicoloured stickers.

For a second (although he was sure it was a trick of the light) he thought he saw one of the stickers wave at him. He simply blinked and shook his head, looking again to find them all quite stationary and put the whole matter out of his head.

They sat in silence for several minutes, Billy munching a packet of crisps and Harry nibbling on the end of the carrot Aunt Petunia had packed him. He looked across the yard to where Dudley was sitting surrounded by his friends to see him greedily stuffing his face with a rather large cake and had a sudden urge to throw the carrot away.

He saw Billy look as well, recognising Dudley as the boy who had teased her at the start of first lesson and her eyes narrowed.

"Would you like some?" She asked, holding out her half-packet of crisps to him. Harry stared at her, not sure what to do; no one had ever shared anything with him.

"It's all right, there's plenty there."

He nervously took a couple of crisps, half-expecting her to tear the packet away and tell him she was joking. But she didn't, just looked at him curiously again, while he munched on them. They were quite delicious.

"Hi, Billy!" A voice suddenly said, and they both looked up to see several of the girls from their class standing a few feet away. The girl who had spoken was smiling warmly at Billy, at the same time completely ignoring Harry. "My name's Jean. Would you like to come and sit with us? I'm sure you'd probably like it more than sitting with this weirdo."

Jean looked at Harry as though he was something disgusting her dog had brought home.

Harry's heart plummeted. This was it, he knew it. Billy was going to leave him and sit with Jean and her friends, and spend the rest of the break pointing and laughing at him. He sighed, reprimanding himself for getting his hopes up.

"It's nice to meet you, Jean," Billy said, a fixed smile on her face, "But I'm all right sitting here with Harry."

Everyone in the vicinity, including Harry, looked at her in surprise. Jean's smile faded, and was replaced with a confused and awkward look, "Um, okay. A-are you sure?"

Billy nodded resolutely, and Jean and her friends turned and left, deep in discussion. They kept glancing back all the way across the playground.

Harry suddenly became aware that his mouth was hanging open, and quickly closed it. He felt happy, not the kind of happy he usually got out of getting small revenges on Dudley, the nice kind of happy, which filled him up like a balloon. "Thanks," was all he could say.

"No problem." She really liked smiling.

"So you came here from London?" he asked conversationally, suddenly much more enthusiastic about his carrot. "What's it like? I've never been."

"Oh, it's wonderful. Lots of people everywhere." Billy went on explaining about how her house hadn't been a house at all, but an apartment high above the city in full view of the River Themes. She told him about her school, and the friends she had made there, and all the places she had visited with her family.

"We went to Kings Cross station so that my sister could catch the train to her new school. It was so big! I'm going there as well- to the school, I mean, when I'm eleven, which is only two years away." At this point, Harry had very much forgotten about his carrot as he was too busy listening to Billy's story.

"But if London was so wonderful, why did you move here?" he said quickly while she was taking a breath.

"My old school didn't work out," she replied sadly, her face falling and although Harry wanted to know why, he had the feeling that it was something private and didn't bring it up again.

But her smile soon returned. "I'm nine, you know? I'm supposed to be in year five, but they wanted to put me in year four because of all the disruption. Did I tell you? This is the third time I've moved this year alone!" she said to Harry's amazement. He couldn't imagine moving somewhere different three times in one year.

"I know, it's absolutely ridiculous, isn't it?" Billy continued, smiling very widely again and looking very much like she was enjoying talking as much as Harry enjoyed listening.

"But my mum and dad agreed that if this school doesn't work out, then we're going to move back to London and my dad is going to home-school me. So I have to be really careful this time, or else I won't be able to-"

"Hey, Potter!"

They both jumped, the sun suddenly shadowed by the enormous form of Dudley Dursley, who had silently approached them while Billy had been talking.

In an instant, Harry was on his feet and ready to run from Dudley's fist, an instinct honed from years of living as Dudley's favourite punching bag.

"I see you've found yourself a girlfriend," Dudley sneered, while his friends moved to form a circle around the bench. Harry glanced through gaps to see the supervision teacher nowhere in sight and felt his heart start to race. "It must be a big achievement, just having her sit next to you."

"Leave him alone, you bully!" Billy said bravely, having jumped to her feet at the same time as Harry. She sent Dudley a look so venomous, that for a second Dudley recoiled, looking surprised. Billy was at least a head shorter than Dudley, and half his width, but Harry reckoned that if looks could kill, Dudley would have been in big trouble at that moment.

"What's your problem, shorty?" Dudley said, regaining his composure to a collective snigger from his friends.

Billy looked affronted, suddenly flaring up in apparent anger. Harry tried to motion to her not to say anything stupid, but she didn't see him, as her suddenly cold blue eyes were fixed upon Dudley.

"What's _your_ problem, fatty?" She retorted, and Harry knew exactly what was going to happen next.

Two of Dudley's friends made a grab for her (Harry having ducked out of the way) and Dudley, rage spelled out in every feature of his flabby face, grasped onto her pigtails and tried to yank her closer.

All of a sudden, the bell rang through the school yard, and the small crowd of children that had gathered unnoticed around the edges of the circle scurried away, while the supervision teacher, having suddenly reappeared, started chivvying the slower ones off to class.

Dudley, somehow looking even more furious, reluctantly let go of Billy's pigtails, and motioned for his friends to leave.

"Don't think this isn't over, _Billy_," Dudley spat into Billy's still defiant face, before showing her a rude hand gesture and following his friends.

Harry breathed a sigh of relief, glad that Dudley hadn't had the chance to throw any punches, before turning his attention, worriedly, to Billy.

"Why didn't you just keep your mouth shut? He's probably going to kill you, now," He said, recoiling when she sent him a glare much like the one she had given Dudley earlier. This was probably the last straw. She was going to leave him, now, and never talk to him again.

"Because," she said angrily, breathing heavily, and picking up her lunch box, "I wasn't going to stand by and let him talk like that to you."

It was Harry's turn to look at her curiously. Why would she care about him like that when they had only just met? Did this mean that she wasn't going to leave him? He didn't dare to hope.

"Is everything all right?" The supervision teacher called and Harry looked around to see that they were the last ones in the yard.

"Yes, sir," Harry and Billy said at the same time, glancing at each other.

"Well, then, off to class, quickly!"

…


	3. Swing Sets and Sorrow

_This has been done for ages, so I figured I'd put it up. Un beta'd, because it seems all right as it is. Hope you enjoy it!_

…

The rest of the day passed by quickly, miraculously without Dudley doing anything worse than glare across the classroom at Billy, but she had cheerfully ignored him, taking every opportunity to turn her megawatt smile on Harry.

The school was only three blocks away from Privet Drive, but even so, everyday Dudley always got a ride home with one of his friends, as he was too lazy to walk and Uncle Vernon always had the car for work. This left Harry to find his own way back, though he didn't mind that much, as it meant more time without his cousin.

As it turned out, Billy lived just a street away from Privet Drive, which for some reason made Harry even happier than he was before. He supposed it had something to do with the fact that she was so close.

So when the final bell rang, they both gathered their things and walked out of the front gate side by side.

Since he had met her at the start of the school day, Billy had barely stopped talking, even to breathe. She had talked so much that the teacher had had to move her to the back of the class during quiet reading, although that hadn't stopped her from winking and smiling at Harry whenever the teacher's back had been turned.

Harry didn't mind that much. Usually, the only people who talked to him were his teacher (because she had to, he reckoned), Dudley (which was usually just before he beat him up), Aunt Petunia (who only really talked to him when she had a job she wanted him to do) and Uncle Vernon (who usually yelled at him). He found it nice, for once, that someone was talking to him and not about him.

They walked for several streets, with Billy talking non-stop and Harry listening, not sure what to say, but liking the feeling of walking beside someone and just listening.

"Oh look!" Billy yelled excitedly, as they rounded a corner, "I didn't know that was there." She pointed at the playground at the other end of the street, and started running towards it, her backpack flying everywhere. "Come on, Harry, let's play!"

Harry stopped where he was, unsure of what to do. He glanced at the side street which led onto Privet Drive, wondering if he should just say goodbye to Billy and go. The Dursleys hated it when he was late.

"Come on, Harry!" Billy yelled, beckoning to him from the swing set, her sticker covered bag (how did she have so many stickers?) lying in an unceremonious heap in the sand nearby.

Harry was very tempted to join her, so tempted, in fact, that he even took a step towards the playground before remembering what had happened the last time he had been late back to Number 4 Privet Drive. He had decided to take a longer route, was all, to prolong the moment in which he would have to face Dudley's fat face again, and had gotten a week in his cupboard for it.

_But everything is different_, he told himself. Billy was different. She was unlike anyone he'd ever known. She was… nice. _Just a few minutes and the Dursleys will never know, _he argued to himself.

In the end, it was Billy running over and taking his hand that convinced him, and he ran back with her, grinning stupidly and dumping his bag right next to hers. They started on the swings, first on separate, then Harry pushing Billy really high. She giggled the entire time.

Then they swapped, and Billy pushed Harry. No one had ever pushed him on the swings before in his life. It was a wonderful feeling, the air whooshing through his messy hair, leaning backwards and forwards and feeling Billy's firm hands on his back to push him every time he went back.

He felt free. From the peak of the swing, he could see over the roofs of the perfectly ordered houses of Little Whinging and into the sky, and for a second felt certain that if he could swing high enough, he could lift off and fly away from everything…

But that shining second ended quite quickly, as an all too familiar voice popped it like a balloon.

"Well, if it isn't Billy and the Potty," Dudley sneered, and his friends all sniggered along as they approached the playground from across the street, not bothering to look both ways like they had been taught.

Harry's heart plummeted to the ground, a sensation he was sure had nothing to do with the swing. He dug his heels into the ground to slow himself down, taking far longer than he would have liked to stop completely.

Billy had moved around in front of the swings and had placed herself in-between the bullies and Harry. She drew herself up to full height, once again glaring at Dudley with all her might. This time, however, he didn't recoil.

"Ooh, what are you going to do, stare me to death?" There were more sniggers, as the group of boys moved to make another circle around Billy and Dudley like they had done in break. "I told you this wasn't over, and now there's no teacher around to save you."

"Oh, really?" Billy retorted, "Is that how you work, hey? Wait until there are no adults around to stop you, and then beat up the kid half your size?" She looked up at him with contempt written across her face, and spat, "How cowardly."

Dudley reached out with both of his chubby hands and grabbed one of Billy's pigtails in each, this time succeeding in yanking her closer. Billy cried out from shock and pain, a sound that sent a sharp ache through Harry's chest.

"Say that again," Dudley bellowed into her face, "And it will be the last thing you'll ever say."

Harry, now motionless, was paralysed in his seat, looking on terrified at the whole exchange. Half of him wanted to run, right there and then, run away and never look back. The gang wasn't paying him any attention; all of them were too busy watching Dudley, who now had one of Billy's arms twisted around her back and was trying to make her cry.

But another part of him, that voice in his head that had told him to come and play in the playground, reminded him that Billy had stood up for him not a few hours ago, and he was the reason she was in this mess with Dudley in the first place. Aside from that, she was the most wonderful person he had ever met and the only person who had ever talked to him like he was an equal human being (aside from the strange people who seemed to know him on the streets, of course) and the first person he had ever considered a-

Harry stopped short of thinking the actual word, not bearing to even consider it. Had it finally happened? Did he really have a- a friend?

His mind made up, he was suddenly determined as he dug his school shoes into the sand and pushed himself back. He had an idea.

He pushed back as far as he could go, and then let go, swinging off the ground. He went back and forth a few times, picking up speed, until finally one of the boys glanced up and looked at him oddly. "Hey, what's Potter-?"

Later, Harry supposed that a gust of wind must have picked up and concentrated all at once on the swing where he sat. It was the only possible explanation, for quite suddenly, Harry felt his bottom leave the swing as he actually went flying through the air. It was a marvellous feeling, being suspended, if only for a few seconds. He really felt like he was flying!

"Leave her alone!" He yelled with all his might.

Next thing he knew, he came crashing down on top of the circle of boys, bowling them over like pins and somehow landing right on top of Dudley. The boys all yelled in shock and scattered, scrambling away.

Harry, somehow unhurt from his landing, jumped up quickly, pulling an astonished Billy up with him. "Are you all right?" He asked, and she nodded with wide eyes. "Quick, let's go."

They both made to scarper away, but they were just a second too late. Dudley, looking dangerous with a face covered in sand, snatched at them from the ground and caught onto Billy's ankle. He pulled, and she tripped over, her face hitting one of the poles from the swing set on the way down.

There was a horrible, sickening crunching noise, followed by a groan, which made Harry's stomach lurch.

"Billy!" He yelled, kneeling down to her side. The part of Billy's face he could was scrunched up like she had just tasted something horrible. Her face, like Dudley's was covered in sand, most concentrated under her nose where the tiny particles were sticking to the drips of dark red blood dropped down onto her lip. Her eyes were red and wet, like she was trying hard not to cry. "Are you all right?" He whispered.

"Let go," she mumbled, and Harry, confused, looked over at Dudley, who he saw still had a grip on Billy's ankle and was looking victorious.

"Look at her, she's a little cry-baby," Dudley snarled, and his friends, all recovered from Harry knocking into them, sniggered angrily. Many of them were eyeing Harry with particularly vengeful looks that told him his little trick with the swing would not go unpunished.

"Oh, look at the poor wittle baby," they jeered at Billy, "Did we make wittle baby cry? Poor wittle baby."

Harry saw a tear slide down onto Billy's cheek as she took a great shuddering breath, and felt several of his own gather at the edges of his eyes and a lump form in his throat. He had tried to help, he really had. But it hadn't made any difference at all. That's all he was, really: useless and unhelpful.

_I guess Uncle Vernon was right after all,_ he thought, hanging his head, his eyes burning.

"Oh, now we made Potty cry as well," one of the boys snorted.

"Shut up."

Everyone, including Harry, looked up in surprise.

"What did you say?" One of the boys asked, a mutinous look of shock on his face that was mirrored in his fellows.

"I said," hissed Billy, "Shut _up_!" She yelled the last word, twisting herself around so that she was lying on her back instead of her front, and Dudley's arm twisted around as well. He gasped in surprise and pain.

"And let _go_!" She commanded Dudley, sending him a look ten times as venomous as her one before. Dudley yelped, as though he had been burned by her look, and let go, jumping back onto his knees and holding onto his hands as though he was in pain.

Now free, Billy jumped to her feet and seemed to tower above everyone else, including Harry. "Now go," she told the gang of bullies. Several of them gulped, their brave facades disappearing.

"Why should we?" Dudley asked from his knees in what he must have thought was a courageous voice, but Harry could tell that he was scared. Hell, Harry himself was scared, for when he looked up at Billy, the nice girl who had been pushing him on the swings not five minutes earlier, and saw something, a fury in her face, that made him want to look away. It didn't seem right.

"I guess you two are perfect for one another, Potter. She's as weird as you are," Dudley spat, scrambling to his feet.

"Leave. Him. Alone!" Billy snarled, and Harry felt absolutely certain that she was about to breathe fire. "Don't you know who he is?"

"What?" Harry and Dudley said at exactly the same time. What did she mean? Of course Dudley knew who Harry was; they'd been living in the same house for seven years.

"What? Are you mad?" Dudley cried.

"Dudley, we've had enough of this weirdness, let's go." Dudley's friends were stepping away, giving both Billy and Harry frightened looks and beckoning for Dudley to join them.

"Come on, Dudley."

Dudley didn't seem to need telling twice. "I'm telling Mum and Dad about this," he snarled viciously to Harry as he stood up and began backing away. "And as for you, Billy-Lee Irlam, this isn't over." He flexed his muscles in what Harry supposed was a manly way, the effect ruined slightly by the way he still held his hands.

"Yes, it is," Billy replied venomously, and Harry felt a tremble in the ground.

_Must be an earthquake,_ he thought. It was the only explanation.

Dudley, however, did something rather odd; he looked in horror at the ground, his eyes wide with fear, took one last terrified glance at Billy, and ran off after his friends as fast as his fat legs could carry him.


	4. Thank Yous and Goodbyes

_Finally finished this chapter! :D_

_Un'betad, so... yeah. Laziness, probably not a good thing. Enjoy~! _

...

Harry didn't believe what had just happened. In his entire life, Dudley had never backed down from a fight. He'd taken every opportunity he could to punch someone to the ground, whether it had been Harry or a younger kid who had given him lip. Nothing had ever scared him before. _Nothing._

And yet, somehow this odd, strange girl who had been around for less than a day had been able to do what no one had done before; stand up for Harry and win! It all seemed like a dream, and any minute now Aunt Petunia would be knocking on his cupboard door to get him up and make the breakfast.

Billy, who had yet to move, let out a large breath that she seemed to have been holding. All of a sudden, Harry realised that she was crying again. Her face, which was blotchy and swollen (not just from the tears, but from her broken nose as well), was scrunched up in an ugly way, sort-of reminding Harry of Dudley when had one of his fake tantrums.

Except he knew that these tears were real.

"I'm s-sorry, Harry," Billy sobbed, burying her face in her hands as the 8 year-old pulled himself back to his feet. "I-I shouldn't have done tha-that. I'm so stupid!" With this statement, she dissolved into loud and extremely wet sobs, making Harry's heart tug again.

"You're not. Dudley's the stupid one," he said, approaching her and giving her a pat on the shoulder. This seemed like an extremely weak action, but Harry, having no experience with crying girls, couldn't think of anything else to do. "And that earthquake was just a coincidence, I think."

"Earth-earthquake?" Billy asked, removing her hands from her face to pierce him with that strange look of hers. "But that was… wait, you really don't know what that was?"

"Er, no? What was it?" Harry replied, very unsure.

The girl looked surprised. So surprised, in fact, that she had stopped crying. "So you really don't know anything? But I thought you were just pretending you didn't because you thought I was a Muggle."

"A-a what?" Harry stammered, slightly affronted at basically being called stupid. Of course he knew things. He hadn't been living under a rock for all his life.

"Oh, nothing. It-it's just a word I made up," Billy said dismissively, looking at him with wide blue eyes, before shiftily looking away. Using the sleeve of her uniform, she tried in earnest to wipe the blood off of her face, soaking the material through. Harry noticed that the actual bleeding had stopped, but it had still left a fair amount of the red liquid splashed across her lips and chin, and her tomato-shaped nose which he had been admiring earlier had swelled to about three times its normal size and was black and dark purple.

"I'm sorry. It's my fault you got hurt," he said gloomily, hanging his head in shame.

"That's all right," she replied with a sigh, looking extremely dejected. "You know, I should probably get going. My parents will be worrying."

"I can walk with you. You know, if you want," he asked, trying not to sound rude or too eager. He sincerely wanted to prolong the time until he had to face Dudley's face and Petunia's heavy frypan again. He wondered what it must be like for Billy to have parents who worried about her. Harry's own parents had died in a car crash when he was one year old.

"You can if you want to," the little girl sighed, trudging over to pick up her discarded bag, Harry mirroring her. He saw that both seemed to be covered in sand and were slightly trampled. In their haste to get away, he supposed that Dudley's gang must have run over them.

"Sorry about your bag," he said quickly, not looking her in the eyes.

In the process of brushing particles of sand off of the sticker-covered material, Billy sent him one of her now familiar venomous looks. "Can you _please_ stop apologising?" she snapped moodily.

"Sorry," he said quickly, not quite catching himself in time, as he was too busy wondering how it was possible that someone could go from happy to angry to sad and then back to angry again in the space of a few minutes. He supposed it was just a girl thing, as Aunt Petunia did it too; one minute she would be cooing over Dudley, and the next, yelling at Harry for something wrong he undoubtedly did. It was extremely disconcerting.

Now Billy's face fell again, and she seemed very close to tears. Again. "I'm sorry, Harry," she croaked, much to the young boy's confusion."Come on, we better get going," she sniffled.

And so they walked off, side-by-side up the street, an awkward air between them. The only time they talked in the journey was when Harry had to convince Billy to walk around Privet Drive, as the last thing he needed was to face Aunt Petunia's wrath sooner than necessary. Billy merely shrugged, looking sorrowful.

At last they turned onto her street, and before Harry knew it, they were at her drive. They both stopped, side-by-side, neither feeling inclined to move. He felt a hollow sort of foreboding at Billy's silence.

She was the one to break it.

"Well, I better go, my parents will be absolutely frantic," she said awkwardly, her voice sounding strangely restrained, as though there was too much emotion in her and some of it needed to be roped in. To Harry's continuing and complete confusion, she looked as though she were going to burst into more tears.

"I'll see you tomorrow, then?" he asked in what he hoped was a cheerful voice (but on the inside he felt quite anxious- he could get through anything the Dursley's threw at him if it meant he could see this strange girl again the next day), but this seemed to undo Billy completely. With a strangled cry, she launched herself at Harry, pulling him into a tight crush of a hug. He became rigid with shock, staying still and quite unsure, mostly because no one had really hugged him before (besides his parents, he guessed, but he didn't really remember that). If Billy hadn't been sobbing grossly onto his shoulder and clutching at him as though her life depended on it, the experience may have been pleasant.

"Oh Harry, this is the last straw, I know it! I left my old school because of bullying, my parents made me leave, and there's no way to hide my nose from them, they'll know what happened in a second! If this had happened before I met you, I wouldn't have minded because I wanted dad to home school me and move us back to London, but now I have met you I don't want to leave, but I'll have no choice! You're such a good person, Harry, and a good friend, and I don't want to leave you."

Harry felt as though he had been punched in the gut. "So…you're sure going to leave?" he asked in an icy voice.

Billy disentangled herself from Harry enough to pull back so that she could look at him with her puffy red eyes. She nodded, and a familiar feeling settled itself back into Harry's heart, pushing down like a weight on his shoulder. Everyone always left him, and Billy, as it turned out, was no exception to this rule.

"But that's not fair," he protested. "You can't-please. If you could explain to them that it was my fault, if I hadn't-"

"It was not your fault, Harry, don't you _dare_ even think that!" Billy scorned hotly, and a tear leaked from the corner of Harry's eye. He wiped it away hastily. "Trust me, I've tried to convince them not to move before, but they're so stubborn, especially my dad. He's completely adamant that no one should hurt 'his baby' that it's clouded over his judgement. I'm sorry."

With those two words, something seemed to break within Harry. He dried up the new tears that fell quickly with the sleeve of his uniform and gently pushed Billy off of him, adjusting his over-large sweater back into some semblance of neatness to avoid looking at the older girl.

"Well then, I better get going. My Aunt and Uncle will be mad enough about Dudley, I shouldn't be later than I already am. Goodbye."

Billy looked as though she was going to throw her arms around him again, but she resisted, instead holding out her hand for him to shake. He took it after some hesitation.

"Goodbye and good luck, Harry Potter. I… really hope we meet again someday. I'll never forget you." Billy surveyed him as though she were memorising his face into her memory, raking her eyes over his features, and he looked back, trying to do the same. He looked at that strange girl, who had sat next to him in class and held out her hand for him to shake, who had chosen him over the other girls in their year, who had stood up to Dudley for him and gotten hurt because of him, who had laughed and smiled so much he had memorised her teeth, and had told him stories of amazing London. Her, with her short, now messed-up brown plaits, bloodied and bruised face, tomato nose and sea-blue eyes.

Then, suddenly, she was gone, racing up the drive and away from Harry. The door banged shut behind her.

…


	5. Imaginary Friend?

Look out for part 2 and part 3, coming in the relative future. :)

...

In the days that followed, Harry felt as though a cloud were hanging over his head. Billy didn't turn up at school the next day, or the day after that, or the day after that, even though Harry dared to hope she would. Aunt Petunia had gone to Billy's parents, of course, after Dudley had given his highly exaggerated account of what had happened at the playground, and things had gone quite out of control from there, but the details were never made known to Harry.

He was given a month in his cupboard for his involvement in the entire thing and was required to come back to Privet Drive immediately after school each day, but the real punishment was that he couldn't go and see Billy at all. The fact that his last view of her had been her retreating back up the drive made him feel empty inside, a feeling which intensified when a strangely smug Uncle Vernon informed him that her family had indeed moved away, and he'd had to force himself not to cry in front of the beefy man.

In the weeks that followed, he felt like a ghost.

In the months that followed, after things had really settled back to usual (although Dudley was still bullying him worst than ever), Harry started finding it hard to believe that he had really met a girl named Billy, and she had really become his first friend. He started to question if she had even existed at all, or if she maybe had just been a figment of his lonely mind.

In the years that followed, that was exactly what he thought. Life went on, and Billy was nothing but the edge of a thought at the back of Harry's mind, an old imaginary friend who had been too good to be true to be real. After all, no one could stand up to Dudley and win, twice, and he'd never seen anyone smile that much around him.

Then he turned 11, and a giant man with an umbrella knocked down the door, and for some strange reason, the word 'Muggle' seemed familiar to him, as though he'd heard it in a dream somewhere.

...

_~end part 1_~


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